


Happily Ever After, Being an Account of a Victorian Fairy Tale in Five Parts

by azurish



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fairy Tale Elements, Fix-It, Fluff, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Pining, Requited Love, Sharing a Bed, Tropes, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5060617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurish/pseuds/azurish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you’re hunting down the stuff of fairy tales, you shouldn’t be surprised when your own life turns into a fairy tale.  In a universe in which Ariana wasn’t killed, Albus and Gellert attempt to track down the Hallows.  Gellert knows that Albus is in love with him, and it’s convenient to indulge him – but that’s all there is to it.  Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Albus Dumbledore is Rather Lovelorn and A Bed is Shared

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to so much Taylor Swift while writing this that this fic’s honorary alternate title, lovingly ripped off from “White Horse,” is “Albus is a Princess (This is a Fairy Tale).” I decided to just go all out on tweeness with chapter/fic titles instead, though, because fuck it, this is _my_ embarrassingly id-y gay Victorian fairy tale. Also, Honoria Dumbledore is actually a canon character, so – I didn’t just make all of this up out of wishful AU thinking. Only most of it.

            France, it turned out, was really damn cold in the winter.

            Gellert had thought that that a childhood in Nyíregyháza had prepared him for the worst winter could throw at him and had scoffed at Albus’s suggestion that he pack his heaviest cloak for this excursion.  Albus had smiled mildly and said nothing, and now Gellert was half-convinced that the other man had known that Gellert would end up freezing his arse off and had simply been biding his time until he could smile smugly as Gellert shivered.  (Not that Albus was smiling smugly – he was far too busy making his way through the snowbanks and trying not to trip over tree roots half-buried by snow – but Gellert hated it when Albus was right about something and he was wrong.  Point of personal pride.)

            After at least half an hour more of tramping through the snow, Gellert finally gave up and whispered a quiet warming spell under his breath.  At once, the air around him shimmered with heat, and the frost that had been gathering on his thin coat started to melt.

            Albus noticed immediately, of course.  He looked back at his friend and sighed.  “Would it have killed you to have done that before you became a human icicle?  Never mind.  This isn’t getting us anywhere; we should go back to the inn before either of us catches our death of cold and come back out here in a morning.”

            “Don’t be hyperbolic, Albus; we’re hardly Muggles.  We’d be poor wizards if the _cold_ were enough to spell death for us.”

            “Don’t be ridiculous, Gellert,” Albus countered.  “We’re not going to find anything out here tonight, in this weather, at this time of evening.”

            Gellert was inclined to be contrary just for the principle of it, but Albus was right.  They’d been trekking through this forest for a solid hour now, and the sun had gone down.  They were hardly going to find the Elder Wand if it was currently buried in a snowbank and obscured by nightfall, after all.  “All right.”

            They began to pick their way back through the moonlit forest, towards the tiny village they had arrived in earlier that afternoon.  They walked in silence, the only sounds the heavy stamp and crackle of boots on snow.  Gellert’s breath fogged every time he breathed out, and the crisp, sharp air was harsh in his lungs.  It took them nearly an hour and a half longer to find their way back to the village, and the front room of their inn had closed for business by the time they arrived.  Gellert, always more capable of charming strangers, went off to try to wheedle a late night meal from the inn’s kitchen, and Albus went up to their room.

            The innkeeper’s wife proved much more intractable than Gellert had expected, and he was scowling when he entered the room – although he also did have two warm pasties in the crook of his arm, a prize he’d bought at an exorbitant price and at the cost of having to listen to her scold him as she heated them in the oven.  When he saw the single bed, however, all thoughts of nagging, tight-fisted innkeeper’s wives flew from his mind immediately.

            Albus was seated at the room’s only desk, his expression grim.  “I thought about transforming it into two, but there’s barely room for one bed in the room as it is,” he said.  “I went down to tell the innkeeper there’d been a mistake and ask for a second room, and the man nearly bit my head off.”

            “His wife’s a piece of work as well,” Gellert noted darkly.  “It sounds like they’re a matched pair.”

            “Mmm.  Well, it seems that there’s no more room at the inn, as it were.  So we can – well.  We could try sleeping in shifts, or perhaps one of us could try sleeping sitting here at the desk.”  But he didn’t sound hopeful as he said it, and the chair looked about as comfortable as it was sturdy, which was to say not at all either.

            For the first time, Gellert regretted insisting that they hare off immediately after he’d come across his most recent piece of evidence.  True, he was concerned that if he had found this clue to the location of the Elder Wand, someone else might also stumble across it and beat him to France – and the rumors he had read about the wizard Giraelis the Undying in an old manuscript written by a Benedictine monk seemed highly promising – but they could have delayed a day or two longer in order to ensure they would have appropriate accommodations, instead of Apparating off a few hours later.  Still, there was nothing they could do now.

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.  “We can share the bed.”

            “You’re sure?”

            “Of course.”

            The two young men undressed in silence, each retrieving night clothes from their shrunken suitcases and redressing without talking.  Gellert stole a few glances at the other boy to gauge his mental state, but Albus kept his eyes firmly fixed on the ground.  Whether from modesty or guilt – or perhaps because he was pretending he wasn’t interested in Gellert – Gellert wasn’t sure.

            It wasn’t as though Gellert didn’t know Albus was in love with him.  He had known since about their second week of friendship, when he had offhandedly mentioned that he spoke mermish and Albus had looked at him with such _delight_ in his eyes.  No one looked at anyone they weren’t in love with like that; Gellert was sure he had never looked at anything other than maybe a few of the books that had been most important in his quest for the Hallows like that.  But after the first unsettling moment, when he had been forced to confront the realization that even a boy this smart could have a weakness that foolish, Gellert could easily see Albus’s love wherever he looked; in the gentle curve of the rare smile Albus saved just for him, in the mixed lust and appreciation in his blue eyes whenever Gellert did something truly impressive, in the way he flushed when Gellert said something particularly suggestive, the dull red of his cheeks clashing furiously with his auburn hair.

            Because Gellert did, on occasion, say things that were suggestive.  And carefully calculated to be suggestive.   Encouraging Albus – up to a point – was a sure way to keep the other boy with him, after all.  For so long, Albus had been reluctant to go off with Gellert on the quest for the Hallows that Gellert _knew_ was their destiny; indeed, he doubted the other boy would have joined him, no matter the love he bore him, had Gellert not found and contacted the Dumbledores’ distant Aunt Honoria, persuading the elderly spinster to come watch over her niece and nephew in Godric’s Hollow.  Ensuring that Albus never thought of leaving again or of returning to his siblings was a high priority of Gellert’s, because finding the Hallows would take so much longer (and, he was forced to concede, might not be possible at all) without him.  But such a delicate matter had to be handled lightly – too little encouragement and it would hardly be effective, but too much and even Albus would have to admit he knew what Gellert was doing (Gellert respected Albus too much to believe that Albus didn’t know the younger man was manipulating him, but as long as he did nothing too blatant, both boys could pretend Albus hadn’t noticed.)  But Gellert had always been charming, and brilliant, witty, wicked men seemed to be Albus’s Achilles heel.

            When they climbed into bed, Gellert was therefore hyperaware of Albus’s body.  This was an opportunity that was too good to pass up – although one that would have to be handled carefully.  And Gellert had to admit that he was curious about how much he could get away with.

            At first, Albus held himself stiffly away at the very edge of the bed, almost falling off the side rather than scooting over towards Gellert; but the bed was far too small to maintain that level of distance, and he finally gave up and sank back towards the center of the mattress.  Gellert gave him a few minutes to settle down in a dip near the middle of the bed, and then he made his move, rolling over so that he was right next to Albus, body practically flush against Albus’s back.  Albus stiffened, but didn’t move.  Their synchronous breathing, the only noise in the dark room, sounded unnaturally loud in the silence.

            His nose inches away from Albus’s hair, Gellert could easily smell the soap Albus used to wash – a simple, clean scent that was very familiar after years of traveling in close quarters with the other man.  Albus’s hair moved whenever Gellert exhaled, a few wispy strands teased with every breath.  They were just _barely_ not touching, bodies separated by scant centimeters, Albus’s body heat radiating out like a physical presence and warming Gellert in the cold, badly-insulated room.  Moving slowly but inexorably, he stretched out one hand to rest it against Albus’s waist; and now that he’d broken the barrier of space between them, Albus felt so much more alive and warm under his fingertips, the situation suddenly so much more real.  The skin of his palm was separated only by thin fabric of Albus’s pajamas from the warm flesh underneath.  He curled his fingers possessively around Albus’s ribs as if he were just stretching in his sleep, and –

            “Stop,” Albus rasped, his voice rough with something more than sleep, and Gellert froze.  “I’m too tired for – stop.”  And without another word, he rolled over and retreated back to his side of the bed, the gesture as futile as it was defiant in such a small space.  Gellert’s fingertips tingled at the suddenness with which Albus’s warm body had been removed from underneath them, and he resisted the urge to clench his hand into a fist.  The bed felt colder with the heart from Albus’s body further away, and Albus must have noticed it too, but he remained where he was for the rest of the night, rigidly clinging to the far side of the mattress.  Eventually, Gellert drifted off to sleep alone.


	2. In Which Albus Dumbledore Demonstrates Why He Was Sorted into Gryffindor

            By the time Gellert woke up, his erstwhile roommate had long since escaped from the shared bedroom.  Gellert found him sitting alone in the inn’s front room, the remains of a late breakfast laid out at the table in front of him, which he was opting to ignore in favor of the book he was reading.  He sat down opposite Albus and pulled the leather-bound book away from him; Albus squawked in outrage, before realizing it was only his friend.  Gellert smirked, and Albus flushed.

            Neither man discussed the previous night; there _were_ limits to how far Gellert would go in encouraging Albus’s affections, and in the cold light of day, last night seemed, perhaps, to have been a misstep.  But an hour spent discussing the hints of the Hallows Gellert had found in the Benedictine manuscript that had led them here proved invigorating enough to restore Gellert to his usual high spirits and the two young men to their customary camaraderie.  Like Gellert, Albus found the Muggle rumors of an old magician with an unusual amount of power and an endless stream of challengers intriguing – and the man’s customary epithet, “the Undying,” seemed promising.  And the dating was about right for the last time the Elder Wand had dropped off the historical record, nearly eight centuries ago.  While it might not be the surest of gambles, they had traveled further on flimsier evidence before.

            By the time they left the inn around noon, the two young men were in high spirits.  A brief conversation in French with a local who pointed them in the directions of the old castle ruins set the day off to a good start; this time, when they walked into the forest, they had some idea of where they were headed, instead of wandering in the darkness.

            But the forest was thick and deep, and the snow was a serious encumbrance, so even with directions it took them nearly five hours to find the ruins of Giraelis’s castle.  When they at last stumbled across the ruined castle, there was no question that it had once belonged to a powerful wizard; the tall outer walls reared up out of the snow, an improbable find in the middle of the dense forest, gray and forbidding and still mostly intact despite their age.  The very air around them vibrated with the remains of dark magical energy, disintegrating spells from centuries prior still clinging to the castle.  Some of the forest greenery had begun attempting to reclaim space that must have been cleared for the fortress, but most of the trees stopped a solid three or four feet before its perimeter, leaving an ominous, empty ring – now filled with snow – between the edges of the forest and the stone walls, as if even the trees were afraid to trespass on the stronghold that had once belong to the reclusive, dark wizard.  A blackletter inscription ran across the arch over the main entrance.

            “Enter if you dare,” Gellert read – showing off a bit, because his skill with French was just slightly better than Albus’s.  “Well.  What do you think, Albus – do we dare?”

            His words were light and teasing, and he smirked as he said them in a way he knew was just this side of flirtatious.  Albus blushed, but his voice was even when he replied, “Lead the way, then.”

            The next few hours were spent methodically searching through the forest for anything that might provide a clue to the Elder Wand’s location – both traces of powerful magic, which might indicate that it had indeed once been present, and hints about where it might be now.  Sunset didn’t distract either man from their mission; both simply cast Lumos charms and continued to search for the wand in the castle.

            At length, Gellert stumbled across what he had been trying to find for the past hour: the castle graveyard.  It was hidden in the back – wizards in the Middle Ages often took serious precautions against grave looting – in the midst of what must once have been an old garden, but which had been reclaimed by nature much more quickly than the rest of the castle.  Wiry hedges ran wild throughout the ruined garden and one tenacious ivy plant was wedging its way into the cracks in a crumbling stone bench that had seen better days.  Towards the back of the garden was a set of simple, unmarked graves, and then one large, magnificent tombstone.

            “Albus, come here!” he called out, and a moment later, the taller boy appeared at the entrance to the garden, pushing his way past the gorse that had begun to grow at the old gate.  “I’ve found Giraelis’s grave.”

            Picking his way carefully through the snowy ruins of the garden, Albus approached.  “Do you think the Elder Wand might be buried with him?”

            “I’m not sure – I’m beginning to doubt he had the Elder Wand at all, honestly, given the lack of a magical signature that strong here – but we could at least check.”

            Albus frowned.  “Are you sure we should?  That seems rather –”

            “Oh, come on, Albus.  What’s that expression you have in English – can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs?  We’re not going to find the Elder Wand without a little trespassing.”  And he turned to blast the gravestone out of the way himself, so that they could access the grave underneath.

            The instant his spell collided with Giraelis’s tombstone, however, it crashed against a gray bubble rising up out of the ground around the grave with a terrific crash and then rebounded back outwards.  Both men ducked so that they weren’t hit by the spell as it careened away, crashing into the castle walls – and then the gray wards rose further out of the ground and burst outwards, passing through Gellert and Albus with a nasty stinging sensation before settling out by the castle walls.  The murky gray wards now surrounded them, leaving the whole castle trapped inside a giant bubble.  The forest outside looked hazy and muted through the translucent warding.

            Neither spoke for a moment.  Then Albus whistled between his teeth.  “Never let it be said you lack for daring, Gellert,” he said, and Gellert shot a quick glare at him.  “Common sense, on the other hand …”

            “Well, how was I supposed to know it’d be warded like that?” Gellert demanded, but the look Albus shot him rather clearly conveyed that it was a _medieval wizard’s grave_ ; of _course_ it was warded.  Gellert wisely decided to remain silent instead of protesting further.

            In silence, the two boys approached the wards.  When Gellert touched the gray, filmy substance, it shocked his hand rather nastily, and he leaped back.  Albus tried to toss a pebble through the wards, but it bounced back from the impermeable, elastic substance.  Then Gellert attempted to cast a basic Confringo at the wards and discovered, with an unpleasant frisson of shock, that the spell wouldn’t work for him.

            “Albus –” he began, but Albus had already discovered the same principle for himself.  The other man turned to him, horror evident on his face.

            “I know,” he said.  “My magic’s not responding to me either.”

            Each of them attempted several more times to produce various basic charms, trying different ways to get around their inability to access their magic, but nothing – from nonverbal magic to wandless spells – worked.  Giraelis’s gray wards, whatever they were, seemed to have trapped them inside the castle and magic outside.

            “Have you ever seen anything like this?” Gellert asked, but Albus just shook his head.

            As night fell in earnest, and the warmth from the last rays of the watery sun disappeared, Gellert’s teeth began to chatter in earnest.  He wished bitterly that he had listened to Albus and packed his cloak, but there was nothing he could do about it now.  Absorbed as he was in investigating why the glowing wards that imprisoned them were also suppressing their magic, it took Albus several minutes to detect his companion’s state.  Once he noticed how miserably cold his friend was, though, he hurried over.

            “We need to go into the castle – we’ll at least be sheltered from the wind in there,” Albus declared, “and perhaps it will be warmer.”  His tone brooked no arguments, nor was Gellert inclined to dispute the suggestion.

            They wandered through the castle, now careful not to touch anything.  If the warding booby trap in the garden was still this potent after eight hundred years, there was no telling how powerful any nasty curses within the castle might be.  Most of the rooms’ roofs had caved in centuries ago, and the moon and stars, glowing white in the cold sky, were clearly visible from within.  The youths settled in what seemed like it had once been the castle keep – the only room whose four walls were all still standing.  Gellert sat down on one of the stone steps, and Albus carefully seated himself next to him.

            “Come here,” Albus said, after a moment.  Gellert cocked his head, the question unspoken, and Albus sighed.  “We might as well share my cloak – it’ll be warmer like that.  And if we can’t cast warming spells, we need to conserve body heat as much as we can.”

            So Gellert scooted over next to him, and Albus unclasped the thick, purple cloak and pulled it over the two of them.  As Albus had suggested, it was indeed much warmer; within minutes, Gellert’s teeth ceased their chattering.  Their shared body heat was contained and amplified within the confines of the cloak, warmth slowly making its way back into Gellert’s limbs.  Without thinking, Gellert leaned closer to Albus to absorb more of that warmth – and Albus flinched slightly, just the faintest twitch, really, when Gellert pressed his side against the other man’s.

            Ah.  Last night.  Of course.

            Gellert held his breath, because he honestly _was_ cold, and body-to-body contact was probably the best way to regain something like a normal human temperature, but Albus’s whole body thrummed with tension.  This wasn’t a power play – wasn’t one of the moments when both of them knew that Albus’s weakness was making him vulnerable to whatever Gellert chose to do, metaphorically belly up and relying only on Gellert’s whim not to eviscerate him – but Gellert was all-too-aware that Albus might perceive it as such and perhaps, for once, call him out.  But finally, after a long minute, Albus sighed imperceptibly and relaxed against Gellert, and Gellert leaned even closer, wrapping the cloak even more tightly around them both.

            However, just an instant later, Albus leaned away from him abruptly, pulling on the cloak awkwardly.  “Look – over there – that arch!” he said, and stood up, practically dragging Gellert with him.

            Gellert’s irritation evaporated once he saw what Albus was pointing at.  What looked like an empty doorway was actually shimmering faintly with power, and, upon closer examination, appeared not to be an empty doorway at all, but rather a carefully hidden entrance to a room.  If you didn’t know it was there, you would simply walk through the doorway and out into the castle courtyard; but when you could see past into the room within, you could walk through and arrive in what must have once been the inner sanctum of the castle.

            They entered, carefully pushing their way past the concealment charm.  The two young men found themselves in a small chamber whose furnishing had been preserved over the centuries by magic.   A gorgeous, finely wrought chandelier dangled from the ceiling over a long stone table that stood in the center of the room.  A grand oak desk took up an entire corner of the chamber, and several glass cabinets displayed all kinds of magical curios.  Something was dangling on the end of a long, fine chain that was fixed to the center spoke of the chandelier.  The trapped young wizards approached cautiously.

            Once they had reached the table, they could see that the object fastened to the end of the chain was a simple silver ring.  It gleamed in the flickering yellow light from the chandelier’s many candles, the candlelight flashing against the grooves of a long message cut into the ring in tiny, spidery letters.  Albus leaned closer and squinted down at the writing (the other man, Gellert had realized quite some time ago, definitely needed glasses, but youthful vanity and a certain endearing stubbornness seemed to be holding him back from acquiring any).

            “If I’m translating this right,” and the gesture at modesty was ridiculous, because they both _knew_ Albus was, “those wards out there will only part for someone wearing that ring.  So one of us is going to have to put it on.”

            Gellert frowned up at the ring.  “There’s no chance that ring doesn’t bear all sorts of curses, Albus.”

            “Of course it does,” Albus said, and then, with a single fluid gesture, the stupid, _stupid_ Gryffindor boy reached out, plucked the ring from its spidersilk-thin chain, and put it on his finger.  The instant the ring went on his finger, he swayed where he stood; and then without any warning, Albus Dumbledore’s eyes slid shut and he slumped down to the stone floor, unconscious.


	3. In Which Our Intrepid Heroes Swerve into a Different Fairy Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: In Which Gellert Grindelwald Wishes JSTOR Had Already Been Invented.

 

            Gellert swore and rushed to his companion’s side.  Albus lay still where he had fallen on the ground; Gellert shook his shoulder, tried a quick “Enervate,” and even lightly slapped the other boy’s face, but nothing seemed to work.  He swore again in Hungarian, loosing a full stream of fluent, angry curses, and sat down at the stone table.  Without even consciously deciding to do so, he pulled Albus’s unresisting body up to lean against the chair so that his head lolled forward against Gellert’s thigh – seeing him lying there on the floor, his red hair furiously bright against the dull gray stones and his face cold and white, made something uncomfortable twist in Gellert’s stomach.

            Stupid Albus.  That God-damned foolish, _reckless_ man – Gellert had known the other boy was rash, had seen him do all sorts of ridiculously brash things before – but somehow it had never bothered Gellert, who also delighted in the sort of rash testing of limits and reckless rejection of boundaries that might well have landed him in Gryffindor himself.  For some reason, Albus’s bravery had never seemed as foolish when he was testing powerful spells or brewing experimental potions without proper oversight as it did now.  It had always been the kind of bravery that implicated no one other than himself, perhaps.  But now he’d of course he’d gone and put on a cursed ring once owned by a dark wizard, of course he’d decided that he could make the decision about what to do to get them out of this mess unilaterally – and of course he’d decided that _Gellert_ could deal with whatever curse the ring carried, could cope with its consequences and help Albus afterwards.  Something had made Albus decide that it was preferable to endanger _himself_ , and decide that he trusted Gellert completely to rescue him from the fallout, and Gellert’s conscious mind shied away from the implications of that information, jerking back so hard from that train of thought that he found himself reeling.

            Cursing Albus’s foolishness wasn’t productive, he reminded himself, and the night was still cold.  Albus, although unconscious, was shivering slightly, and Gellert himself was feeling the cold fiercely even within his borrowed cloak.  He needed to get them out of the castle and back to the inn immediately, and he could work on waking Albus up once he was back in the room.

            Hopefully Albus’s had at least been _right_ about the ring – hopefully it hadn’t been another trick of Giraelis’s.  (Gellert’s blood ran hot at the idea that Albus might have risked whatever curse this was for nothing, but he pushed the thought to the back of his mind – best not to think about that for now, either.)   So he stood up, and, with a grunt, hoisted Albus up into a fireman’s carry, his friend’s long, gangly limbs dangling down awkwardly around Gellert.  Albus was lucky Gellert was a burly man – although he was thin and gangly, Albus was _tall_ , and so his bodyweight was hardly negligible.  He stumped back towards the castle entrance, his muscles already beginning to protest, Albus’s body heavy on his shoulders.  Holding his breath, he approached the gray wards, hoping that he wasn’t about to be thrown back violently once again.

            To his relief, the wards shimmered as he approached and then parted easily before him, allowing him and Albus out into the clearing.  Once outside, he propped Albus up against a tree and took several deep breaths, and then cast a quick warming spell, hoping that his magic would indeed respond to him now that he was outside the bubble formed by the castle’s wards.  To his relief, it worked immediately; he quickly turned to Albus and cast a warming spell on him as well, not liking how pale the other man’s face had gone as he had carried him through the cold.  He tried another “Enervate,” in case the magic suppression within the wards had been stopping the spell from waking Albus up – but Albus remained stubbornly asleep, eyes closed, chest rising and falling slowly with deep, even breaths.

            It seemed more important to get Albus back to civilization than to worry about some Muggles seeing them appear in the village, and so, throwing caution to the winds, Gellert Apparated the two of them back to the outskirts of the forest.  Luckily, it was late enough that no one else was around, and Gellert was able to half-carry, half-drag Albus back to their room in the inn without incident.  Once there, he laid Albus out on the bed, absently spelling his clothes and hair dry after their encounter with the snow as he considered his sleeping friend.  Sleeping curses.  He could figure this out …

            A quick diagnostic spell revealed nothing, and the letters carved on the ring alluded to nothing other than the fact that the ring was keyed to Giraelis’s wards.  Shrugging, Gellert decided simply to start with the basics and work his way up from there; his repertoire of spells was extensive, and he was sure he could think of _something_ that would work on the curse.  He was, after all, one of the brightest wizards of his age – surely nothing an old wizard from centuries ago could cast was beyond _his_ abilities.

            An hour later, he’d tried just about every spell related to sleep that he knew – from basic enervation to anti-drowsiness charms to wakefulness spells.  Nothing seemed to work.  Swearing under his breath with frustration, he finally decided to give it up for the night and try again in the morning, when he himself was warm and dry and well-rested.  He could try potions next …

            (Falling asleep next to his unmoving companion made him remember his behavior two nights ago, and something in his stomach twisted uncomfortably.  Taking advantage of Albus like that seemed less cunning and cleverly manipulative now, for some reason.  He stayed firmly on his side of the bed, and woke up cold and far away from Albus in the morning.)

            He spent the rest of the next few days alternately brewing potions and trying different variants of the spells he’d attempted before, but at the end of the third day, he was forced to admit that nothing he had done had had even the slightest impact.  Albus remained stubbornly unconscious, no matter what Gellert did.

            Sighing, he ran a distracted hand through blond curls as he disposed of the latest useless potion with a quick flick of his wand, judiciously directing a few other cleaning spells to the workspace he’d set up in their small room in the inn.  This called for more drastic measures – brute intellect wasn’t going to be enough.  He was going to have to break out the books and try to figure out what the hell this curse had _been_ in the first place.

            Over the course of the next week, he found himself Apparating into and out of libraries all over Europe, trying to hunt the elusive Giraelis through the stacks of various local archives.  The man seemed to pop up all over the place – a reference to an unnamed French wizard who bore the epithet “the Undying” in the footnotes of one medieval bestiary, a mangled version of his name transliterated into Andalusi Arabic in a set of Spanish court documents, a series of letters describing the ominous accidents occurring over a single winter at a ruined castle in the middle of a forest in Northern France – but nothing substantial materialized.  Deciphering terrible handwriting and nonstandard orthography in foreign languages was time-consuming, as was Confunding his way into various archives around the Continent; he found himself wishing desperately for Albus’s presence.  Having a partner in crime when researching made everything much more enjoyable, if not much faster.

            Given the fact that this whole quest had only started because of his and Albus’s fixation on a series of fairytales, it shouldn’t have taken him as long as it did to turn to less traditional sources; but then, perhaps he could be forgiven for being a bit distracted at present.  As it was, on the tenth day of Albus’s unconsciousness, he found himself browsing through – of all things – a volume of ancient fairy tales, transcribed at some point in the eighteenth century by Muggle ethnographers, from the region where he and Albus has been adventuring.  He had reached the segment of the book cataloged as love stories and was about to give it up for a wash when he came across a story that seemed uncannily familiar.

            An angry old wizard, having turned evil with the bitterness of a youthful betrayal in love.  A young man trying to make his way in the world, sneaking into the wizard’s castle while its owner was gone for the winter.  A piece of jewelry the avaricious youth took – in this story, it was a necklace – and then an enchanted sleep.  The wizard returning, triumphant in his villainy, to tell the man’s family that the curse had truly presented him with an impossible choice: no one could leave the castle and return to their loved ones without contracting the curse, but the curse itself couldn’t be broken without – true love’s kiss?

            “You have to be joking,” Gellert muttered under his breath, staring at the page before him.

            Quickly, he flipped to the last page, but, as with all true wizarding fairy tales, the ending was bleak: the young man slumbered on, his family was left in shambles, and the wizard lived on – “undying” (Gellert groaned when he saw the epithet) and growing older and eviler every day – into infamy.

            True love’s kiss.  It wasn’t unheard of for magic – especially old magic (especially, a nasty voice in Gellert’s head pointed out, the kind of nasty old magic that had rested dormant for centuries) – to be keyed to that kind of affective trigger.  But – true love’s kiss?  _Really_?  He wanted to laugh at the idea – but with Albus having been unresponsive for nearly a fortnight, he didn’t really have the luxury of being skeptical or cynical.  And after all, he supposed when you were hunting the stuff of fairytales, you didn’t really have the right to be surprised when your own life took on some of the more ludicrous aspects of myth and legend.

            But – where the _hell_ was he supposed to find Albus Dumbledore’s _true love_?  This wasn’t the sort of thing he and Albus had ever discussed before – Albus had never seemed especially interested in the kind of innuendo and gossip boys sometimes shared with each other in confidence, and they had been far too busy talking about enchantments and ethics and, later on, the Hallows.  Albus’s … feelings had become apparent to him rather early on, too, and that had made romance or even just sex a bit of a touchy subject.  They’d danced around the topic, carefully avoiding mentioning _why_ they weren’t talking about it – Albus probably grateful, on some level, that Gellert hadn’t brought it up, and Gellert content never to address it head on, because it was strategic to let Albus believe what he wanted.  But as a result, Gellert knew very, very little about this area of Albus’s life.  Surely there was someone?  But he had no idea – and who _would_ have any idea?  Albus had always been a very private person, after all, given everything that had happened with his family.

            And with that, Gellert knew exactly what he had to do next.  After all, there was really only one place left to go: back to Godric’s Hollow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, everyone, I am _so sorry_ this chapter took so long! As I mentioned in the comments to some of y’all, I spilled an entire mug of tea on my laptop, and I only finally got my old files back today. But: to make up for it, because I do have the entire rest of the fic completed, I’m going to be posting a chapter a day until the fic is complete (so: this chapter tonight, chapter four tomorrow, and the last chapter Monday). So you will, indeed, get everything in an expedited fashion, because I really am sorry for leaving you all hanging like that.  
>  Also, sidenote, a sometime-historian, I feel duty bound to note that it is historically irresponsible of me to present romantic love of the twentieth century variety as a transhistorical phenomenon, and that if this fanfic were at all bound by the rules of anachronism, it’s probably not the case that Giraelis’s spell would recognize the kind of true love’s kiss Gellert has in mind as appropriate for breaking the curse. ~~(Perhaps the curse is a Straussian?)~~ Anyways; do as I say, not as I do, kids, and be more accountable to proper historiographic practices in your fanfic.


	4. In Which Family Ties are Quite Literally Tested

            “Aberforth, this is an emergency,” Gellert said as Albus’s brother opened the door.  Without giving the other man time any time to object, he plunged on, “Albus has been injured and he needs – er.  Well.  Can I come in?”

            Aberforth stood there in the doorway and blinked at him for a few seconds.  He was wearing his pajamas and his stubble stood out in the flickering street lamplight.  “Where’s Albus himself, then?”

            “He’s at my aunt’s house.  Wouldn’t do any good for him to be here himself, because he’s not going to wake up until he’s – look, can I just come in?”  He shifted uncomfortably on the doorstep.  “This is a conversation better had inside.”  _And one better had over a stiff drink_ , he didn’t add, but he was fairly sure the sentiment came across anyways.

            “Fine.”  Aberforth turned on his heel and, without looking back at him, disappeared into the house.  Gellert followed him down a long, narrow hallway – so familiar from that first summer – and into the drawing room.  He sat down on an uncomfortably small loveseat, then scooted forward to perch on the edge when he heard it groan underneath him.  Seated awkwardly in the Dumbledore’s front room, he felt all of sixteen again.

            “Ariana and Honoria are asleep, so try to be quiet,” Aberforth told him.  “Firewhiskey or butterbeer?”

            “Firewhiskey.”

            Neither man said anything as Aberforth opened a drawer in a side table, pulled out a decanter of firewhiskey, poured them drinks, and returned the decanter to its proper place with a dusty, glassy clink.  He handed Gellert his drink and sat down opposite him.

            “So.  What’s my brother gotten himself into this time, off on your grand adventure?”

            “Have you ever heard of Giraelis the Undying?”

            “Of course not,” Aberforth said shortly.  “Do I look like I’m Albus?”

            Gellert’s lips thinned.  “Obviously not.  Albus and I were in northern France hunting down a lead I’d found in a Benedictine monastery,” he began, and recounted the rest of the tale as quickly and bluntly as he could, from their disastrous night spent trapped in the forest to Albus’s harebrained decision to put the ring on to the information Gellert’s research had turned up on the distasteful nature of the curse itself.  At first, Aberforth refused to believe him about Giraelis’s spell; only Gellert’s challenging him to try to read the old French himself, if he thought Gellert’s translations weren’t up to par, silenced his objections.  The whole processes took half an hour, and when they were finished, Aberforth got up to pour them both a second round of drinks.

            “So why did you come to me?” he asked.

            Gellert sighed.  “I admit, I’m hoping that perhaps I _have_ misunderstood the particulars of the curse and that a kiss from a platonic – say, familial – loved one will work as a cure.  It’s hard to make a spell that precise about such things, and the love one of you bears him might be sufficient to trick the curse.  I had hoped Ariana could come over tomorrow and you could persuade her to kiss her brother’s forehead.”

            Aberforth didn’t challenge the unspoken assumption that if one of the Dumbledore siblings could break the curse, it would be their sister.  Instead, he said, “Doesn’t seem like your Giraelis was the kind of incompetent who’d leave a flaw like that in his spell.”

            “Yes.  Well.  My real purpose here is to ask you whether you know anyone who might be your brother’s true love.”

            “You’re not?” Aberforth asked, but he didn’t look surprised – either by the fact that Gellert didn’t love his brother, or by the fact that his brother’s true love would most likely be a man.

            “No.”

            “Didn’t think so.”  Aberforth frowned, then added, “I’ve always told him you’re just playing him for a love-struck fool, you know.  He doesn’t seem to want to listen to me, but I know your type.”  There was something unexpectedly angry and bitter that ran through his words; it was perhaps the most fraternal thing Gellert had ever heard the other man say.

            “Mmm.  Do any other names spring to mind?”

            “I’ll have to think about it.  Maybe Elphias Doge?”

            “The boy from Hogwarts?”

            “Yes.  Give me some more time – you of all people know that Albus has never been what you’d call a social man.  Not sure he’s ever met someone you could rightly call his true love at all.”  He stood up to show Gellert out.  When they reached the doorstep, he paused in the doorway, and then asked, “If my brother really doesn’t have a true love and we don’t find someone to – er – kiss him, what happens?”

            Aberforth wasn’t given to asking questions to which the answer was obvious.  Then again, Gellert wasn’t given to holding back difficult truths, but for some reason, he found it hard to respond, breath catching in his lungs for a moment.  After a beat, he forced himself to shrug and say, “Then he won’t wake up.”  He turned and headed back down the cobbled lane without a backwards glance, but he could tell, from the light and the long shadows, that Aberforth stood in the lighted doorway for a long time after.

*

            Honoria Dumbledore arrived bright and early the next morning, her niece and nephew in tow.  She was a stout, tall woman, with a riot of bushy, thick red curls, of a shade slightly more orange than Albus’s and slightly less brown than Aberforth’s.  When she reached Bathilda’s home, she banged the doorknocker against the door so hard that the umbrella stand next to the doorway shook with the force.

            Gellert’s aunt was still in the kitchen making breakfast, so he answered the door himself.  When he opened it, Honoria was peering down at him disapprovingly.  He had always been slightly nervous around Albus’s aunt – perhaps it was the fact that Albus himself had always seemed vaguely guilty about having left her and his siblings back in Godric’s Hollow whenever the subject arose, and some of Albus’s discomfort had rubbed off on Gellert.  Gellert, who had never had what could be termed a close relationship with his family, hadn’t entirely understood Albus’s reluctance to leave his relatives – but then, Gellert often hadn’t understood Albus’s more sentimental turns.  In any event, even though he had been expecting her, coming face to face with the older woman on his doorstep was a bit much for nine o’clock in the morning.

            “What’s this about my nephew, then?” Honoria demanded.

            “Has Aberforth not explained it to you?”

            Honoria scowled at him.  “Foolish boy said something about a curse and true love’s kiss, but I was hoping you could explain _properly_.”  Now Aberforth was scowling at him as well from over her shoulder – a very pointed expression that carried with it every ounce of resentment Gellert had probably earned for leaving the other boy to explain the fairy tale-esque curse to his elderly maiden aunt.

            Unfortunately, the problem was that Honoria, far from having the wrong end of the stick, had actually grasped the situation correctly, and there was nothing for it save explaining that this _was_ the truth.  “I’m afraid Aberforth had the right of it, Mrs. – Madame Dumbledore,” Gellert said, wincing because reminding Honoria of her unwed status was perhaps not the best way to placate her.  “Albus was cursed by a ring left behind by a sentimental Dark Wizard.  I know it sounds strange, but it’s absolutely true.”

            “Huh,” Honoria snorted, and, if anything, her scowl deepened.  “That’s what you get for leaving to go off on some irresponsible quest, then.  Meddling in magic you don’t know the half of.”

            Gellert swallowed the first retort that came to mind, because antagonizing Albus’s relatives wasn’t a clever move right now.  (And also maybe because Honoria was more or less _right_ , although that had never stopped Gellert before.)  “Yes, well – I was hoping that his sister’s love for him might be enough to break the curse,” Gellert said.

            “Nothing else for it, I suppose,” Honoria said, and then she moved aside to reveal the girl lurking behind her on the doorstep.  “Right, let’s go inside,” she added, but Ariana, whom Gellert had rarely, if ever, seen outside of the Dumbledore residence, shook her head and remained firmly rooted on the cobblestones outside Gellert’s home.

            Honoria sighed and turned to face the young witch, taking her hand in her own.  “Come here, Ariana,” she said, her voice surprisingly gentle, and the girl ceased resisting and allowed herself to be tugged along.  They ascended the steps without incident and reached Bathilda’s guest room, where Gellert had laid Albus out on the bed when he had first arrived.

            The other boy looked as if he were sleeping, his expression peaceful and the rise and fall of his chest deep and rhythmic.  The harsh, winter sunlight coming in through the window made his skin look unnaturally white and pale, and the red of his hair clashed horribly with the lavender pillowcase and quilt on the guest bed.  Upon seeing his still form, Aberforth shifted uncomfortably, then glared down at the swirls of the wood in the floorboards.  Honoria, meanwhile, got right to business.

            “Ariana,” she said, “would you be a dear and go kiss your brother on the cheek?  Just a quick little peck, love.”

            Ariana stood there silently, her expression mutinous.

            To Gellert’s surprise, Aberforth intervened.  “Come on now, Ariana,” he coaxed.  “You just need to kiss Albus’s forehead.”

            Ariana turned to her brother, and, as if he were the only other person in the room, she whispered, “What’s wrong with Albus?”  Her voice was so quiet Gellert had to strain to hear it.

            “He’s – gotten hurt,” Aberforth said carefully.  “We’re hoping that you can make him better.”

            “With a kiss?”

            “Yes.  A kiss from someone who loves him.”

            “I love Albus,” Ariana said.  And then: “Can’t you kiss him?  You love him too.”

            The corner of Aberforth’s mouth tightened.  “Of course I do, Ariana, but I was just hoping that you might kiss him.  We think you’d be the best at this.”

            “All right,” Ariana said.  And she walked right over to the bed, leaned down, and kissed her brother on the temple.

            Nothing happened.

            No one in the room dared to breathe for a few seconds, holding out hope that Albus might move, but he didn’t so much as stir in his sleep.  Ariana frowned and kissed him a second time.

            “I love Albus,” she said, and when she looked up, her expression was open and hurt.  “Why isn’t it working?  I love him.”

            “Of course you do,” Honoria said quickly.  “Of course you do.  Maybe Gellert is wrong about the, er, illness.”  And she flashed Gellert a quick look that said quite clearly, “ _Not a word about magic to her_.”  Gellert wisely chose to obey.

            “Come along now, Ariana,” she said.  “We’re going to go back home now.”

            “Is Albus coming with us?”

            “Albus is going to stay with Gellert while he cures him,” Honoria said.  “Now come here, dear.”  And she took Ariana’s hand in her own and led her from the room.  For some reason, Aberforth didn’t follow her; instead, he sat down on the chest at the foot of the bed and looked up at Gellert.  For a moment, neither of them spoke, staring instead at Albus’s still, sleeping form on the bed.

            “What are you planning on doing now?” demanded Aberforth.

            Gellert had no idea what he _could_ try next, honestly, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Aberforth.  The accusatory light in the other boy’s eyes had put him on the offensive, so instead he said, “That depends on you, doesn’t it?  Have you managed to figure out who your brother’s true love is yet?”

            Aberforth glared at him.  “Albus hasn’t _got_ a true love, you idiot.  Of course he doesn’t – he’s been too bloody busy mooning over _you_ for the last three years to find someone else.  This is all your damn fault, you know that?”

            “ _My_ fault?” Gellert said.  “I hardly –”

            “Yes, your fault,” Aberforth interrupted him.  It seemed that the other boy had decided to channel whatever confused mix of emotions seeing his older brother incapacitated had stirred up in him into anger at Gellert, because the accusations continued to come out in a loud torrent, “If you hadn’t encouraged him the way you do, the idiot would’ve been able to move on and find someone else.  I hope you’re happy now.”

            “I’m hardly any happier than you are to see such a brilliant –”

            “Merlin’s balls, you’re making me _sick_ ,” Aberforth interrupted him.  “Albus is more than just a – just a _brilliant mind_.  I know the two of you can get so caught up in your little mutual appreciation society that you forget the rest of the world is out there, but Albus is _much_ more than a brilliant mind, and at least he _tries_ to see more than that in you, although God knows I don’t see whatever the hell it is he does see.”

            Flummoxed, Gellert cast about wildly.  The idea that Albus hadn’t just been bewitched by his brains but was actually attracted to something in him as a person was – well, not something he wanted to think about.  “It’s not like _you’d_ miss anything at all about him, anyways.  At least I care about some part of him.”

            “What do you mean?” Aberforth asked loudly, standing up so that he was toe to toe with Gellert.  He was solidly built and of a height with Gellert, and he was glaring at him eye-to-eye.

            “We both know there’s a reason we asked _Ariana_ to kiss Albus,” Gellert said, unable to stop himself.

            “How dare –” and Aberforth looked like he was winding back to swing at him in earnest when the door to the room banged open.  Bathilda Bagshot stood there on the landing, eyebrows arched disapprovingly at the two young men.

            “ _What_ ,” she said, in the icy, disapproving tone mastered by maiden aunts the world over, “is the meaning of this shouting?”

            “Nothing,” Gellert said.  “It’s nothing, Aunt Bathilda.  Emotions just running high because of Albus’s condition.”

            “We’re sorry,” Aberforth added, and those words seemed to mollify Bathilda far more than anything Gellert had said.  “I was just leaving.”   And with that, he left the room, closing the door gently behind him.

            When he had gone, Bathilda turned to Gellert immediately.  “Now,” Bathilda demanded, “are you going to tell me what this is all about?”


	5. In Which a Curse is Broken

            They relocated to the kitchen for the discussion that was to follow, because Bathilda had left her kettle on the stove and scones in the oven.  As they talked, she sliced tomatoes to fry, her fingers dexterous and movements deft even as the conversation grew more heated.

            His talk with Aberforth the night before still fresh in his mind, Gellert was able to summarize Albus’s predicament concisely.  Bathilda was a much better audience than Albus’s brother had been; the few times she interrupted Gellert were only to ask clarifying questions.

            “So we need to find Albus’s true love to kiss him awake,” Gellert concluded at last.  “But I’m afraid Aberforth may be right.  I don’t think there’s anyone out there who _is_ Albus’s true love.  Of course, I’ll keep trying to come up with a counter curse and just beat the curse by brute force,” he added quickly.  “But it’s a fairly tricky spell, and – what if I _can’t_ come up with a way around it?  I’m not sure what to do next.”

            “Well, kissing him yourself seems like the logical next step,” Bathilda said, and then she turned to check that the butter she had spread on the pan resting on the stove was melting properly.

            “What?”

            “You mean you hadn’t even thought to try kissing him?  That mind of yours seems to have gotten dusty while you were haring off after fairy tales abroad.”

            “Albus and I aren’t – we aren’t in love,” Gellert said.  “There’s nothing more than friendly affection between us; nothing of the sort that could break a centuries’ old spell.”

            “Merlin, boy; he’s been in love with you for _three years_ ,” said Bathilda.  “That’s no puppy love or adolescent crush.”

            “I’ve never had the slightest interest in him in return,” Gellert said.  His voice was far more matter-of-fact than he felt, however.  Something about the idea of a boy like Albus Dumbledore – a boy with an intellect that toweringly, staggeringly immense; but also a boy with hair that lovely and long and red, a boy with a twinkle that kind and mischievous in his blue eyes, a boy who had such an unconquerable sweet tooth and who sometimes absently used lemon drop wrappers as bookmarks between the pages of important scholarly tomes – in such deep, hopeless, unrequited love sat uncomfortably in his chest, but Gellert pressed on.  “I think of him as a friend.  That’s all.”

            Bathilda shook her head.  “A friend with whom you stayed up to all hours in this very house, giggling and plotting away, so satisfied with yourselves and caught up in each other.  You decided to bring along with you on this ridiculous quest of yours – you’ve spent the last two _years_ tramping all over God-knows-where with him.  I’m hardly blind, but you barely need _eyes_ to see it.”

            Gellert looked down, idly tracing out the whorls in the wood on the table with one fingertip.  “He’s brilliant – the only really brilliant person I’ve ever met,” he said, after a moment.  “That’s all there is on my side.  He might be in love with me, but it’s none of my business, and I’ve never done anything to _encourage_ it.”

            “Never done anything –” and Bathilda had to break off speaking for a few moments, so deep was her incredulity.  She turned back to the stove, rattled a few pans around entirely unnecessarily, and then spun around towards her nephew.  “Gellert Grindelwald, you could hardly have encouraged that boy more.  I’ve sat through breakfasts in _this kitchen_ listening to you flirt so outrageously with Albus that I’ve wanted to ask you whether you’d prefer me to excuse myself from the table, so you two could have the room!  Perhaps you thought you were only leading him on, keeping him with you by encouraging his interest,” and her eyes narrowed, and Gellert blushed, “but you weren’t disinterested, not by a long shot.”

            “That’s not how it was at all!”

            “I can see what’s right in front of my face,” Bathilda retorted.  “Now, you’re going to go up there and kiss that poor boy immediately.  If I’m wrong – and I’m not – the worst you’ll get out of it is a bad kiss with an unresponsive wizard.  And when I’m right, you can set about making up the last _three years_ to that foolish love struck puppy you’ve taken advantage of, and Honoria Dumbledore will stop throwing me dirty looks every time I run into her at the butcher’s.”

            And so there really was nothing else for it but to go back upstairs and re-enter the guest room.

            Albus was still exactly where he had left him earlier, stretched out on his back on the bed, his arms laid out straight by his sides.  Gellert crossed the room and stood there, staring down at the other youth.  His face was smooth in this unnatural sleep, untouched by either the concerns about his family that Gellert thought made him look far too old sometimes or the delighted intelligence that often animated his expression.  Gellert suddenly realized that he didn’t like it – that he rather disliked it – that he hated the thought that Albus might never smile at him in that gentle way again when he thought Gellert wasn’t looking or that he might never again see that mischievous light in the other boy’s eyes or the way Albus’s expression lit up whenever he came across something new or exciting or unexpected in their research.

            He leaned down, smoothed Albus’s hair carefully out of his face so he could delay for a moment longer, and then braced himself and brushed his lips against his friend’s.  And _oh_ , maybe his vaunted intelligence wasn’t quite all that if it had taken him _this long_ to figure out that this was what he had been wanting to do all this time.  Albus’s lips were firm and smooth and this felt about as natural and right as breathing –

            So of course Albus Dumbledore chose that moment to come awake in a fit of flailing limbs, just as Gellert had figured out what his heart’s desire had apparently been all along.  One floundering arm managed to clock Gellert right on the ear and then, to compound it, Albus bashed their foreheads together as he tried to sit up.  Gellert reared back; he wanted to glare at Albus, because that had hurt, but the warmth currently radiating out through his chest suffused him with too much goodwill to mind very much.

            Albus looked around the room blankly; evidently even his great intellect was entirely unable to comprehend his current circumstances.  Which was understandable – he’d been unconscious for nearly two weeks, after all, and the last thing he remembered must have been putting on that ring – but seeing Albus Dumbledore utterly flummoxed was a rare experience.   “Where are – what’s going – why are we in Godric’s – and what –”

            His uncharacteristic confusion was so adorable that Gellert felt obligated to lean back in and kiss him again.  Disoriented, Albus caught the other man’s face in his hands and pulled him in, as if this were a common occurrence; maybe he thought he was dreaming.  And if their first kiss had been enough to convince Gellert Grindelwald that he’d been missing out all this time, _this_ kiss was enough to convince him that he was never going to miss out on kissing Albus again.  Perhaps, he thought wildly, they should suspend their quest for the Hallows for a month or so and just catch up on kissing in the meantime.  Albus’s mouth opened immediately, and the feeling of his tongue against Gellert’s sent a shiver up Gellert’s spine.  Gellert instinctively caught Albus’s lower lip between his teeth and bit down lightly, and Albus _moaned_ , and suddenly certain parts of Gellert’s anatomy informed him that they were interested in catching up on a lot more than just kissing.

            It was, Gellert thought afterwards, one of the sweetest twenty seconds of his life.  But suddenly Albus was pushing against him, trying to force his head back with the very hands that had pulled him in in the first place.

            “What are you _doing_?” Albus hissed, once Gellert had reluctantly broken away.  Twin spots of color bloomed high in his cheeks, and he looked far more agitated than Gellert had ever seen him.  “I told you – and you said you wouldn’t.  We both _know_ you don’t love me, Gellert, and I won’t stand for you – for you _playing_ with me like this.  I’m happy to quest for the Hallows with you, but you can’t just use me like this.  You don’t need to insult me by pretending like this in order to keep me around.  You can’t – I can’t – please don’t.”

            Gellert tossed his head impatiently, curls falling to one side.  “I’m not pretending.”

            Albus glared at him, but the glare, Gellert noticed, was rather more watery than furious.

            “The ring you put on cursed you to dreamless sleep until someone who truly loved you kissed you.  It’s from Giraelis’s – oh, never mind,” said Gellert, foregoing an opportunity to show off his considerable research acumen for the first time.  “I’m your true love; now shut up and kiss me again.”  He leaned back down, but Albus braced his palm against the other man’s chest and held him off.  “What’s wrong _now_?”

            “just – give me a moment,” Albus snapped.  Taken aback at his tone of voice, Gellert obeyed.  Albus stared down at the coverlet for a moment.  When he looked up, his expression was guarded, but there was such a depth of naked _want_ lurking in his eyes that Gellert was uneasily reminded of the dissatisfaction he’d felt at the idea of Albus Dumbledore in unrequited love.  “The curse relied on a kiss from my – from my true love to break it?  And you brought me back to Godric’s Hollow.  Looking for Aberforth?  Because – hmm, you thought familial love might be enough to break it, but you also thought he might know who actually loved me.  But he couldn’t find my true love, of course.”  He paused.  “And then you determined it was you?”

            Gellert nodded carefully, and Albus’s stoic façade crumpled.  “You love me?” he asked, and the hope on his face was so painful that Gellert bit back any number of retorts to a question whose answer was so very obvious under the circumstances.

            Instead, he sat down on the coverlet next to Albus.  “I’ve been a fool for a while now, and I’m – sorry,” he said, the apology uncomfortable on his lips but necessary.  “But yes.  I do.  I just hadn’t let myself realize it.”

            “All right,” Albus said quietly.  He looked down, processing this information.  “All right.  I – all right.”

            “I’d like to kiss you again,” Gellert said.

            “You’d like to –?”

            Apparently, the two kisses really _had_ broken Albus, because Gellert had never heard the man he apparently loved ask as many foolish questions in a row ever before.  “Yes, of course.  What else did you think I’d want to do, now that I know we’re in this for life?”

            “For life?”

            “Of course.  We’re each other’s _true love_ , to the extent that I could break an eight hundred year-old curse with that power.  I can’t imagine there’s anything out there that could overcome that.  And after all, it’s not like there’s going to be anyone else worthy of either of us, is there?” he added, with his usual insouciant, breathtaking presumptiveness.  “It only makes sense that we’re going to live forever with each other.  Why would you waste that?”

            “I would’ve thought you wouldn’t –” Albus began, and then he shook his head and something haunted and shadowy was dislodged from his expression.  Instead he smiled, a self-deprecating light in his eyes, and looked at Gellert.  “Kiss me?”

            “I thought you’d never get around to asking,” Gellert grumbled, and then he leaned in to capture Albus’s lips again, because there were more important things than quips right now.

            If anything, their third kiss was even better than the previous two.  And afterwards – well, suffice it to say, it was awfully convenient they were already on a bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And in this world, in which Albus is rather more sure of his place in Gellert’s affections, and in which Gellert has decided he’s bound for life to Albus and realized that there are, perhaps, some things he wants more than world domination or the Hallows, Albus is able to temper Gellert’s monomaniacal fire and the two live – well – happily ever after.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me through this cracky, fluffy journey, folks! <3 I have a couple more snippets of Grindeldore fic lying around on my laptop, now that I have my files back, so - maybe I'll finish those up at some point soon as well. But this is the fix-it fic my heart needed, so I hope y'all enjoyed reading my id as much as I enjoyed writing it, or, at the very least, will refrain from mocking the fun I had here. =)


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